Switzerland: Open Source Switzerland Network Testing Tool Catches ISP Throttlers In the Act

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Anyone have it working on the MAC?

http://gizmodo.com/5032527/open-source-switzerland-network-testing-tool-catches-isp-throttlers-in-the-act

Open Source Switzerland Network Testing Tool Catches ISP Throttlers In  
the Act

As part of an effort to thwart future ISP infractions, a la Comcast,  
the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released Switzerland, an  
open source software tool for "testing the integrity of data  
communications over networks, ISPs and firewalls." If you've been  
following Comcast for any amount of time over the past year or so, you  
know exactly what that means.

It's available for download now, but be warned: this is an alpha  
release command line tool (read: newbies need not apply just yet).  
Serious code monkeys are encouraged to download and kick the tires a  
bit to see if it does as advertised. Mainly, that means detection of  
packet modifications or injections as they travel over IP networks.  
Past culprits in this category include anti-P2P tools from Sandvine  
(Comcast vs. BitTorrent), AudibleMagic, advertising injection systems  
like FairEagle, and censorship programs like those used in China.

Here's a little bit more on Switzerland from the EFF:

    The software uses a semi-P2P, server-and-many-clients  
architecture. Whenever the clients send packets to each other, the  
server will attempt to determine if any of them were dropped, forged,  
or modified [...] Switzerland is a much more sophisticated successor  
to the pcapdiff software that we released last year. It automates many  
of the things that had to be done by hand with the earlier code.

    One advantage this architecture has over other network testing  
tools is that it can spot arbitrary kinds of packet modifications in  
any protocol — it doesn't assume that the interference comes in the  
form of TCP reset packets or web page modifications, and it isn't  
limited to BitTorrent or any other specific application.

[EFF]



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com